On the night Daenerys "gave birth" to Rhaego, a disturbance that swept through the entire camp broke out in Drogo's khalasar—but it was not caused by Qotho.
Yes. The old Bloodrider had been moved by Dany's words. Leading five hundred elite riders of Khal Drogo's khas, he quietly bypassed the camp's defenses and rode north through the night.
They took advantage of the chaos from the previous night—but the chaos itself was not of their making.
When the unrest erupted last night, the whole camp was filled with shouting men and neighing horses. Torches were like stars scattered across the sky, carpeting all the land within sight.
Ser Jorah strictly forbade anyone from entering or leaving, and personally led a force that slew seventeen horselord warriors who attempted to break into Drogo's grass-curtain palace.
It was only the next morning that Aggo finally learned the confirmed news from the smoke-filled ruins of the camp: Pono had led more than twenty thousand Dothraki Screamers away from Drogo's khalasar.
The turmoil had come from clashes between Pono's men and those who tried to stop them.
These past few days, Pono had seemed obedient, but in truth he had been secretly contacting the leaders of various small khas groups. While the other kos were still staring at Drogo's grass palace, he had already realized something: no matter when Drogo died, the one with the strongest men and horses would be king.
Khal Drogo's khalasar was the strongest on the entire Dothraki Sea, with more than forty thousand Screamers. Counting the young riders, it had over fifty thousand warriors who could fight.
Pono took twenty thousand Screamers in one stroke. The remaining twenty thousand were then carved up by more than a dozen kos. In just one night, Pono—no, Khal Pono—became one of the most powerful khals on the Dothraki Sea.
The unrest caused by Pono's departure was only the beginning. The collapse of Drogo's khalasar had begun. Over the next two days, more than ten kos came one after another, dividing up the remaining people, wealth, slaves, and livestock.
On the fourth day, Dany stood atop a hill and looked around. Once, the khalasar had been like a brown blanket spread over the red earth. Now the blanket kept folding in on itself, until only this tiny patch of Dany's khas remained—like a stain on a red "floor."
The Dothraki had no choice but to leave this land immediately. If they did not leave, they would die. With no water and no grazing for their horses, nomadic horselords could not survive.
Everything had gone exactly as Dany had expected.
No—she had miscalculated one thing.
The Dothraki valued the prophecies of the Dosh Khaleen far more than she had imagined.
The Dosh Khaleen—the widowed khaleesis, the wise women of the Dothraki, rulers of Vaes Dothrak, priestesses of the Mother of Mountains, and planners of major khalasar movements across the Great Grass Sea.
Thud thud thud.
At dusk on the fourth day, against the backdrop of a massive red setting sun, a thousand elite riders came charging from afar, kicking up a long dragon of dust.
It was Ko Jhaqo.
Outside the wooden spike barricade of the grass-curtain palace, Ser Jorah led over a hundred Dothraki riders. Blades were drawn, ranks tight, ready for battle.
"Neigh—!"
Ko Jhaqo's warhorse reared high, the windblown sand making Jorah narrow his eyes.
"You've already left—why come back?" Jorah shouted, his voice muffled beneath his helm.
Thump!
Without a word, Jhaqo hurled a dark, blood-soaked object toward Dany. It was a human head.
It rolled several times at Dany's feet. She saw an aged, scarred face—eyes wide open, mouth gaping, as if accusing fate of its injustice. No—Dothraki warriors did not accuse. Even in the face of the cruelest fate, they would shout a battle cry.
So Qotho, even in his final moment, had still roared defiance.
Thump, thump, thump.
One horse after another, one rider after another, rode in an arc and expressionlessly dropped blood-smeared heads before the tents.
Soon, the heads piled into a small mound.
Four nights ago, Qotho had led five hundred elite riders away. Four evenings later, beneath a blood-red sunset, Khal Jhaqo returned with five hundred mutilated heads.
"Where is my son?" Daenerys asked hoarsely, her gaze lowered.
Khal Jhaqo gestured to a rider behind him. The Dothraki handed him a wooden pole over four meters long.
He raised it high so everyone could see.
"Ah—!"
Irri, Doreah, and the other handmaids cried out in despair.
The pole was thin. At its tip was a small head, no bigger than a melon. Bronze Dothraki skin, jet-black hair like Drogo's, almond-shaped eyes with pale violet pupils.
"Why?" Dany's face turned deathly pale. Her body swayed as she coldly stared at Jhaqo. "Did Qotho not tell you my oath? I asked only that this child live his life in peace. The old women of the Dosh Khaleen would witness my vow. He posed no threat to any of you."
Jhaqo bared his teeth in a savage grin. "Killing the son of the previous khal is the tradition of the horselords. Everyone knows."
"Everyone knows," his people answered in unison.
"Your oath, your agreement with the Dosh Khaleen—Qotho told us all of it. But that is not our tradition. The great riding people do not follow such things. Everyone knows," Jhaqo laughed loudly.
"Everyone knows," his followers echoed again.
"We?" Dany thought for a moment, then asked, "You were nearly a day's ride behind Qotho—at least three hundred kilometers. You could never have caught him. Did Pono make his move?"
(P.S. In A Song of Ice and Fire, all measurements use Imperial units—miles (about 1.6 km), leagues (about 4.8 km). There are no kilometers. But kilometers are easier for everyone to understand, so no special notes will be made. From now on, all 'li' will mean kilometers.)
"From start to finish, Qotho's group never escaped that crafty bastard Pono's pursuit. Later, we all joined in. But I was luckier—I happened to run into Qotho's remnants. Hahaha!"
Jhaqo threw back his head in triumphant laughter, the pole in his hand like a banner of victory, swaying proudly from side to side.
"Worthy of Drogo's strongest guard. Five hundred men charged left and right, killing nearly three thousand of us. In the end, only thirteen riders remained when I met them. I personally cut down a Bloodrider and a little khal."
He pulled his braid from behind his head to his chest, pointing at the bells tied into it as he frowned. "Even though they were old, young, and crippled, I still added two bells for myself. After all, I am a khal now. A khal should have a long string of bells that represents a chain of victories."
Like the Manchus of Huaxia, Dothraki men bind their hair into braids from childhood. Whenever they are defeated in battle, they cut off their braid as a mark of disgrace.
In this way, the whole world knows of their shame.
At Dothraki feasts, seating is determined by the length of one's braid. Warriors with long braids receive greater respect, sit closer to the khal, and occupy higher places. Those with short braids can only sit near the walls, on tattered mats laid on the ground.
A long braid represents a Dothraki's honor. The number of bells tied into it commemorates the number of victories they have won.
Khal Drogo had never suffered defeat in his life. His khalasar was the largest. His braid was thick and long, hanging past his hips.
The jet-black braid was wrapped with countless jingling bells. When there was no more room, even his beard was braided and strung with small bells.
Now, Khal Jhaqo counted Qotho and the infant he protected as two victories.
You will regret what you did today. Dany was furious beyond measure, sentencing Jhaqo to death in her heart.
Jhaqo—may you at least live for the next five years.
"What will you do now?" she asked coldly. "Kill me? Or your former khal?"
"She didn't even cry?" Jhaqo turned and muttered to Mago. "Truly a wolf-like woman, cold and hard. We've all lost."
Four days earlier, when the khalasar fell apart, Mago had taken advantage of the chaos to abduct Dany's Lhazareen handmaid, Eroeh.
He raped her a second time. Afterward, he rewarded her to the new khalasar under Jhaqo, letting the men take turns riding her. In the end, he cut off the poor girl's head and threw it near Dany's tent.
—Because Eroeh was someone Dany had forcibly taken from Mago, and he wanted revenge!
Half a month earlier, during Drogo's raid on a Lhazareen market town, the young girl Eroeh had been captured by Mago and raped in public by the Dothraki. Daenerys Targaryen had happened to pass by.
She stopped the Dothraki warriors who were violating Eroeh and took the girl as her own slave. This violated horselord tradition—even a khal could not casually seize a subordinate's spoils. Only Drogo's authority and strength had allowed him to suppress the matter for Dany's sake.
Mago was a powerful warrior, now serving as a Bloodrider to Khal Jhaqo. The idea to impale the baby's tiny head on a pole had been his.
He had even bet with Jhaqo on whether Dany would faint in fright.
Dany did not shed a single tear. She simply stared at them with her bewitching violet eyes, looking at them as if they were already dead. This was something they had never expected. They had lost completely.
"Woman, under the witness of the Mother of Mountains, I swore never to harm my own khal," Jhaqo urged his horse forward a few short steps and shouted at Dany's khas. "Everyone knows."
"Everyone knows," Mago said.
"Everyone knows," Jhaqo's people answered together.
Jhaqo continued, "A khaleesi who has lost her khal will never again be touched by any Dothraki horselord. She will be sent to Vaes Dothrak and become one of the Dosh Khaleen. Everyone knows."
"Everyone knows," Mago shouted from the side.
From Dany's khas, Aggo stepped forward and called out, "After the khal is buried, we will escort the khaleesi back to Vaes Dothrak."
"Hmph. My khalasar will be waiting for you on the north bank of the Lhazareen River. Don't even think of running," Jhaqo said coldly.
This place lay at the edge of the Red Waste. Going north would lead back to scattered Lhazareen settlements; crossing the Lhazareen River meant entering the boundless Dothraki Sea. As for the south… that was over a thousand kilometers of barren wasteland.
He scanned the small remaining camp, the riding whip in his right hand cracking through the air with a chilling snap. "Now, hand over the property that belongs to the khal—and no longer belongs to you."
"The slaves, warriors, and livestock have already been taken," Ser Jorah said, frowning.
"Armor man, I want this palace." Jhaqo pointed his whip at the grass-curtain palace behind Dany. "Only a khal may live in a khal's palace. The Dosh Khaleen do not need it."
Jorah turned back to look at Dany. His right hand pressed on his sword hilt, while his left quietly lowered the visor of his flat-topped helm.
But Dany shook her head at him, then turned to Qotho's replacement and gave an order. "Have the women dismantle the tents."
...
The fully completed English PDF of this fan-fic is now available on my Patreon shop.If you want to support my work and enjoy the entire story in one go, grab the PDF and binge-read it from start to finish without any breaks.
Patreon Shop:patreon.com /InkNovels
Here are a few fan-fic titles that I've recently uploaded on my Patreon:
"Game of Thrones: Dragon Prince"
"Game of Thrones: Political Life"
"Game of Thrones: Lannister Kingdom"
"Game of Thrones: Ruler of the Deep Seas "
" Game of Thrones: From the Elden Lord to the Young Wolf"
"Game of Thrones The Glory of a Knight"
(End Chapter)